


Slowly Towards the Sun

by unsettled



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 12:06:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsettled/pseuds/unsettled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Let us make you anew, my poor friend."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slowly Towards the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I’ve done a lot of 'Coward is something not human', so Blackwood feels overdue for it.

He inherits it, in a way. 

He finds it, drawn by the slightly bitter taste of old, old magic, down in the cellars of the house. One of his ancestors must have had more than the spark Coward has; he hasn't even the first idea of how to create one of these. 

It stares at him, blankly, set to nothing after so many years. He wonders how many, wonders if it could tell him. If it understands the passage of time as he does. 

He wakes it with a touch, a silent command. "Come with me," he says, and it follows him obedient.

*

Its parameters are limited, very limited, suited only to servitude of the silent, mindless sort. He not sure what to do with it, yet, but sets to studying it, testing the edges of its abilities. It is mutely obedient to his whims, and he begins to find the silence unsettling, almost frightening. 

When a use for it finally comes to him, he is struck by the sheer madness of it; he laughs and laughs until even it is staring at him, as perplexed as it is capable of being, laughter not a command it recognizes. 

"Come," he says. "Let us make you anew, my poor friend."

*

He cuts his tongue for the scribing, the rewriting of its boundaries. He doesn't have to; he could open a wound on his arm far more conveniently. It doesn't even have to be his blood, but he wants the connection, wants the act of binding to be more than words, just as he wants the double punch of blood and saliva. 

It holds its arms outright, hands up, for him as he begins the tedious process of unraveling and remaking. He's giving it a wider range of abilities, and the capacity to learn. And a modicum of … not free will, exactly, but the allowance to reason things out, act for itself without his immediate approval or direction. Its original creator would never have done so, would never have considered it, he's sure. But he is not afraid of what it could become. 

Perhaps God is the only one who can truly create, but as he dips the nib in the blood welling from his tongue, Coward feels he has come close. 

It frowns, suddenly, and pulls the hand coward is working on away. "What is it?" he asks, foolishly, as it regards him without even opening its mouth, incapable and unthinking of speech. He looks down, examines the script he's carved into its bloodless flesh. "Oh," he says. He should have waited to apply the sequencing for sensations. He shrugs, and gestures for the return of its arm. "You'll simply have to put up with it," he says, and maybe he should feel impatience, but instead he feels merely curiosity at its reaction. 

Its skin twitches and jumps from then on, but it makes no further effort to stop him. 

He sets the quill aside, eventually, and rises. The taste of blood is thick in his mouth, bright and bitter. "Open your mouth," he tells it, and presses his lips to its, pushes his tongue into its unresponsive mouth and lets the blood flow, paint its lips and teeth red. Its flesh is chilled, oddly unyielding.

He pulls back, and it makes a sound, the first it has, guttural and low, as it leans forward, back into his space, back against his lips and kisses him this time, oddly gentle. "Thank you," it says, words thick and clumsy. 

Coward smiles. It will take some time for things to slot into place, and by the time they do, it won't remember this happening. But he will, and he will treasure it. 

*

Henry is a good name. A strong name, a traditional name, a name for kings. So he calls it Henry as he strokes his fingers through its hair, as it remembers, slowly, its new life. 

*

"I love you," Henry tells him, frequently enough to be flattering, just as often whispered against Coward's skin as said in broad daylight, fingers brushing across Coward's cheek. 

_Of course you do,_ Coward thinks. _It's how I made you._ He smiles and turns his lips into Henry's palm. 

*

Sometimes Henry wakes, panicked, thrashing. "I can't remember," he says, voice wound tight and frightened. "I can't remember, Daniel. It's like I was made from something, like I have no past, I can't remember where I grew up." 

"It will come back to you," Coward says, patiently, tucking himself against Henry. "Be calm, and it will return." 

"I can't remember," Henry repeats, confused.

*

Henry comes to his bed still smelling of the slaughterhouses. He thinks of telling it to bathe, but the scent isn't that different from Henry's own faintly earthy decay, that causes those close enough to catch it unease, fear they cannot define. 

When Henry tells him about the explosion, excitedly, kisses him between its recounting of events, of things Coward never ordered, never even saw the need for, Coward thinks he's never been so proud. 

*

He should feel more, he thinks, when they tell him that Henry died, that Henry is once more food for the worms. There should be sorrow, shouldn't there, for his creation, for one who loved him so greatly, for the innocence that never fully left Henry's eyes. There should be a tear or two for the man, shouldn't there? 

Yet he feels nothing more than a faint sense of regret, a tinge of annoyance at its destruction. 

After all, it's not like it ever had a soul.


End file.
